Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a new sheet material having an excellent hand and good draping characteristics.
Many attempts have been made to make synthetic sheet materials which look like natural sheet materials. Thus, for example, various products have been marketed as artificial leathers and synthetic leathers. The objective has been to produce products which are similar to natural sheet materials and which have the excellent performance characteristics of natural leathers by using comparatively cheap synthetic fibers and semi-synthetic fibers in the preparation of the synthetic sheet materials. However, the synthetic materials have been substantially inferior to natural sheet materials in hand and other sheet characteristics.
It has also been often attempted to make sheet materials from natural fibers as is evident from felts which utilize the fulling action of wool. However, such products are substantially inferior to knit and woven fabrics and sheet materials obtained from synthetic fibers in such physical performance characteristics as form stability. Moreover, excellent sheet materials have not yet been obtained. In other words, as is obvious also from a detailed structure analysis of natural leathers, it is thought that they are a kind of compound structural body. In the case of artificially made materials, it will be necessary to compound various functions. But this has not yet been realized. Therefore, a need continues to exist for an improved synthetic sheet materials which possesses the characteristics of natural materials.